We’ll start by setting up the Flex component, its charting data provider, a few basic styles, and a very basic custom property sheet integration. You can find all of the (xlx, xlp, Flex source) source code here…

We’re working with an MXML-based component to illustrate a rapid way to construct custom charts and also because I prefer markup to pure ActionScript coding for readability and ease of use. I also think that a lot of attendees learning about the SDK for the first time at the BOBJ conference in October looked rightfully frightened seeing pure AS components and 1000’s of lines of code for 1 simple component. Here, we’ve used <100 lines of code for our chart, mostly markup, and we have achieved an impressively rapid custom column chart as the result. Creating this entire project (chart, property sheet, Xcelsius Packager) took under an hour.

We’ll keep posting updated source code as this component evolves through the series, including in-line source code comments. Please note* Use the code however you’d like. However, it will be up to you to ensure its stability and is not recommended for a production environment, more as a jump start to inspire confidence and ideas for injecting easy and free custom charts into your Xcelsius projects.

To use the component in Xcelsius, bind the data property to a single row of data, as we only have 1 series at this stage. Then, select your fill type and you’re all set.

**I took the property sheet directly from the BOBJ SDK examples and quickly modified it to meet these requirements. Try it for yourself and see what else you can add on if you’d like.

**Also, remember to set up this project using the SDK fundamentals (i.e. setting the compiler to 2.0.1 HF3, referencing the Xcelsius SDK swc, etc.)

**If anyone has a custom chart they’d like to see, please feel free to comment.

Next, we’ll look at adding multiple series, custom tooltips, number formatting and some additional styling controls.

Other Posts to See

• January 20, 2009 — News: Xcelsius 2008 Fix Pack 2 is Coming! (7)
• October 29, 2008 — Review #3: Background Builder – Revive your User Interface! (0)

You can access the download, Release Notes and Fixed Issues doc at the following link (please bookmark) – https://websmp230.sap-ag.de/sap(bD1lbiZjPTAwMQ==)/bc/bsp/spn/bobj_download/main.htm

Note:  If you originally downloaded it you have now have the ‘old version (build 12,2,1,66)’, and you will have to uninstall that version and re-install the current download. In Windows you can go to Add/Remove Programs, check Show Updates and then you can uninstall just the Fix Pack.

It was also just announced on SDN:
http://forumsa.sdn.sap.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1518318&tstart=0

DOWNLOAD HERE

Other Posts to See

• June 16, 2008 — Guru Tip #4 – Take 4 Simple Steps to Preview your Web Service Output Data using an Xcelsius Snapshot! (0)
• May 5, 2009 — Video: Conditionally Formatting Y-Axis Labels (4)

We have some pictures to share with everyone that could not attend the Xcelsius Community Event at SAP BusinessObjects User Conference 2009, thanks to Natasha Lloyd. See all the pics at http://bit.ly/1EQg4q.

Don’t forget to check out our new Facebook Fan Page for more on the Event!

Thanks,

Soo
soo@everythingxcelsius.com

Other Posts to See

• June 23, 2008 — Guru Tip #5: How-to Download Crystal Xcelsius 4.5 Latest Updates (0)
• May 4, 2009 — Top 10 Xcelsius 2008 SDK FAQ’s (3)

I know that I have been announcing this on twitter and my Linkedin status for some time, but it seems like the invites finally went out on 10/9 for the exclusive ‘Bringing the Xcelsius Community to Life Event’ this year at the GBN Conference in Dallas Texas.  It is being sponsored by SAP and hosted by the Xcelsius Gurus.

Below are some details:

What: ‘Bringing the Xcelsius Community to Life Event’
When: Tuesday, October 20, 2009 @ 5:30 – 7pm EST
Where: Manchester Room, Hilton Anatole (you must RSVP to attend as it is by invitation only)
Attire: It’s a party!
How: Invitation Only (if you did not receive one and want to attend keep reading)

Here is a sneak peek of what to expect!

1. Exciting announcements from the Sap Xcelsius Team
2. Exclusive insight into 2010 from the Xcelsius Gurus network (you really don’t want to miss this!)
3. Over $8,000 worth of give aways from the Xcelsius Gurus including training, Xcelsius Templates, software, signed books (from Everything Xcelsius, Antivia,Analysis Factory, Centigon, Infosol, Cobi Systems and much more)
4. Networking with the Xcelsius Gurus, SAP Xcelsius Team, other Xcelsius customers,  newbies and developers and much more!
5. Notable RSVP’d attendees:
   • Saskia Battersby (Speaker) – Xcelsius Product Manager
   • Mico Yuk (Host) – Founder, Everything Xcelsius.com / Xcelsius Gurus Network
   • Ryan Goodman (Host) – Founder, Centigon Solution / Author, Crystal Reports 2008
   • Loren Abdulezer – Founder, XcelsiusJournal.com / Author, Xcelsius 2008 Dashboard Best Practices
   • Michael Alexander – Founder, DataPig Technologies / Author, Crystal Xcelsius for Dummies
   • Many more!
6. Food and drinks
7. Xcelsius Community Volunteers (we have 5 listed who will usher you in at the door)

The event is by invitation only, and it went out to all ‘registered’ GBN members who indicated they were interested in ‘Dashboarding’.  YOU MUST BE REGISTERED FOR THE CONFERENCE TO ATTEND!

See the PDF invite for instructions on how to RSVP.

Because it is sponsored event we do have very limited seats which are filling up quickly, so we hope to see you there!

Sincerely,

Mico Yuk
Founder, Xcelsius Gurus Network

Other Posts to See

• August 4, 2008 — Xcelsius 2008 Demo Source files found?! (0)
• June 16, 2008 — Guru Tip #4 – Take 4 Simple Steps to Preview your Web Service Output Data using an Xcelsius Snapshot! (0)

When asked why it was not announced, SAP stated that they are waiting for the ‘Fixed Issues’ PDF to be posted on or before October 16th before making a formal announcement.

We are working to get more details, but for right now all you can do is install and test.

DOWNLOAD HERE

Other Posts to See

• September 23, 2008 — News: BOBJ User Conference Early Bird Special Extended to 9/26! (0)
• March 9, 2009 — News Alert! – Centigon Webinars 3/12 and 3/19 !! (0)

As you’ve probably noticed we have been very slow in posting over the summer. I personally had a serious case of writer’s block that stemmed from social media overload, from which I am now happily recovered.

For those who don’t know, you can now follow us on Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn, and Facebook.  The Xcelsius Gurus network / communities have grown to over a 1000+ members combined over the summer due to your ‘word of mouth’.  We appreciate your support!

As fall eases in, and we say goodbye to our summer vacations I wanted to kick off this Fall by recapping some important events that took place over the summer in the Xcelsius world.

Xcelsius Gurus Related

1. Xcelsius Gurus/ SAP Customer Success Story – SAP did a customer success story one of our favorite New York based clients, Makosi Inc and this is the results. This was very exciting for us as we finally got a chance to show some of our work.  More to come on this during the fall!
2. Xcelsius Gurus Social Expansion - We decided to extend our social reach and it has been a great success thanks to YOU!  As mentioned above you can follow us on Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn, and Facebook.
   
3. Xcelsius Gurus 1 Year Anniversary - This actually took place at the end of June while most of us were on Vacation.  We have grown quite a bit since last year and we plan to make 2010 a record year as the product continues to evolve.
4. Xcelsius Gurus GBN Presentations - This will come in a separate post next week.
   
5. Xcelsius Gurus GBN Webinar Recordings – Evan and myself did webinars for GBN this summer. We had a great turn out and it went well.  I also gave away 2 free template files to all attendees that can be found on the GBN Dashboarding website, I believe. You have to register for a free GBN Membership, but its well worth it. You then scroll down the page to find the webinar and hear the recordings.
   • Mico’s Webinar – Xcelsius Gurus-Top 10 Beginner’s Quick Start Guide!
   • Evan’s Webinar -Custom Components & the Xcelsius SDK: Facts, Myths and Tremendous Potential

Xcelsius Related

1. Release of Xcelsius 2008 Service Pack 2 (Enterprise, Engage, Engage Server) – It was a bit bumpy in the beginning but SAP quickly got over the humps. We’ve gotten mixed reviews from users, but so far so good!
2. Release of Xcelsius 2008 Service Pack 2 (Present ONLY) – This was released separately and hardly announced.  We honestly did not realize that the Service Packs for Present would be separate releases.
3. GBN Conference Early Bird Special (ended 9/4/09) – We are so excited about this event as all of our Gurus are presenting some of which are not represented on this site.  We will all be there and we are working to finalize the details on an invitation only SAP / Xcelsius Gurus event for the Xcelsius Community.  More to come this week!
4. Antivia XWIS wins SAP award for best integration with SAP BOE – This award winning application is definitely worth taking a look at for all who are frustrated with the limitations of QaaWS and Live Office.

Xcelsius SDK Related

1. Centigon CSV BETA (now closed) - This came to an end in July but was very exciting.  Centigon has put the final release on hold, but this new alternative to XML presents another easy way to connect your Xcelsius dashboard to live data. The full product is now available for purchase!
2. Xcelsius SDK Competition Winners – Congrats again to Antivia and Centigon for the winning 1st and 2nd prize.  In addition we saw the birth of 2 new players in the Xcelsius component works, Cobi Systems (who is rumored to have over 60+ components coming to market this Fall) and Force.com (who has done some amazing integration with Salesforce). Ryan should be doing a review post about these new players soon!
3. NEW Xcelsius SDK Forum – This was a bit of a surprise. It went live a few weeks ago and well, Evan likes it.  We’ll see what transpires.  It would be good to know who is really doing SDK development.

Other

1. RoamBI Launched – The only way to miss this big train is to be hiding in a shell.  Founded by the original founders of Xcelsius, this new product has gotten tons of great publicity.  In addition Ryan has launched a new blog and Linkedin group to foster its new and growing community. You can also follow them on twitter and get a free BETA download on your Iphone or Ipod touch!

Other Posts to See

• July 6, 2008 — News: Xcelsius 2008 General Best Practices Guide Available! (5)
• May 1, 2008 — Contact Us (0)

https://forums.sdn.sap.com/forum.jspa?forumID=466

After running through the Xcelsius SDK forum, I noticed a few quick-win issues posted that I’d like to lend a hand on.

The issues are:

1. Dynamic Visibility
2. Number Formatting
3. and…Flex Charting Watermarks (a very annoying problem).

Let’s start with the watermark:

It can be frustrating trying to track this illusive charting watermark down as it seems it should just work out of the box. However, that’s not the case. If you’re building Flex charts against the 2.0.1 SDK AND using Flex Builder 3 to do it, follow the steps in this KB article and you should be good to go:

http://kb2.adobe.com/cps/403/kb403860.html

Next, let’s take a look at dynamic visibility.

Here’s the problem described: https://forums.sdn.sap.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1456645&tstart=0

And here is a working example of a simple Boolean value visibility implementation controlling a Button’s visibility property. We normally use status keys as an approach, but if you just need a simple toggle, this should do the trick. Making the private variable Bindable is the key.

And finally…number formatting.

If you are consuming formatted numbers in a component and then doing something with those values and subsequently writing them back to the Excel model, it’s best to treat those values as Objects or Numbers.

i.e.

As you may be aware, you can’t leverage any kind of inherent Xcelsius formatting utilities via the SDK but this approach should ensure that the integrity of the consumed value is preserved when it’s written back to the Excel model. If you need to format numbers in your component, use the Flex CurrencyFormatter and NumberFormatter, etc. classes to get your desired number formatting results.

Other Posts to See

• June 30, 2009 — Video: Show Chart Values without Hovering (0)
• December 16, 2008 — 2008 Xcelsius Webinars List! (0)

For information on how to install it, please visit the Documentation Site Which includes the following:

• What’s Fixed in Xcelsius 2008 Service Pack 2

• What’s New in Xcelsius 2008 Service Pack 2

• Xcelsius 2008 Installation Guide

• Xcelsius 2008 SP2 Release Notes

• Xcelsius 2008 SP2 User Guide

We look forward to receiving your feedback and comments.

Other Posts to See

• May 1, 2008 — Contact Us (0)
• July 19, 2008 — Sample Calendar #1 (0)

The flashy aesthetics of Xcelsius has always been a debate sparked by data visualization experts and designers who like the “shiny” graphics provided by Xcelsius and other technologies. I disagree with customers or developers who passionately desire Flashy graphics over what Few emphasizes as well executed dashboard design by maximizing every inch of screen real estate. Xcelsius does not derive its value by looking shiny, and customers today don’t buy into flashy graphics over a solid value proposition both for business and/or IT stakeholders. Xcelsius sells because it provides value as a flexible point and click development tool for constructing BI dashboards. The sleek look of Xcelsius with simplistic interactivity captivates the attention of customers the same way that advertising does in print, web, and television media. After a customer purchases a dashboard technology like Xcelsius, the novelty of flashy widgets fades immediately once execution and implementation becomes priority number one.

Many software vendors offer their own “dashboard” technology, so customers exposure to these concepts have put pressure back on vendors to improve the technology. A gray scale dashboard with flat graphics is not exciting to look at compared to Xcelsius at first glance, but once you dive into the content and the visual communication aspects of dashboard design, Xcelsius can lose its luster if the dashboard designer does not understand technology and technique. I believe that the following are the top reasons that experts like Stephen Few get agitated with Xcelsius:

1. Flashy Graphics and Gradients
2. Missing data visualization controls and features
3. Poor execution of best practices

1. Flashy Graphics and Gradients

I think the standard skin that comes bundled with Xcelsius 2008 is much better than the previous Apple OS (Aqua) skin from 2003, which was bubbly and over the top. Like everything, trends can dictate how design is applied during a certain period. In the early 2002 up until recent years, shiny graphics with heavy shadows and bevels dominated the discussion of why Xcelsius graphics produced tremendous interference. Good design does not adhere to technology trends, and data visualization shouldn’t be any different. What Edward Tufte advises in a statistical landscape and Stephan Few advises in a business landscape will not change much over time, regardless of technology. What I consider “interactive data visualization” borrows from these concepts but focuses data visualization as one important element of an interactive application. What most customers desire and adapt from Xcelsius technology is basic data visualization coupled with an interactive user experience for drilling, filtering, and inputting information. Users are comfortable with clean, yet stylized graphics in Vista and Apple operating systems, so there is no reason why interactive controls can’t be stylized with light gradients to provide some depth and create that perceived ease of use.

2. Missing data visualization controls and features

The demands for better data visualization controls has not changed much in recent years, but unfortunately Xcelsius has fallen behind with a lacking library of data visualization components that belong in every dashboard application. Why we still don’t have Microcharts, Sparklines, and Few’s bullet charts out of the box is beyond me. The Xcelsius SDK has opened the door for us to improve Xcelsius to a certain point, and there are excellent new add-on components coming on-line to fill this gap. This short list of components have become the de-facto standard for dashboards, so I look forward to having them at my disposal soon.

3. Poor execution of best practices

Everyone has a creative side, but someone who has never picked up a design book with an emphasis on data visualization should not implement dashboards for their own company and certainly not as a consultant. Dashboard development is not the forum to unleash creative juices when the intent is to monitor business performance. Working with clients who have educated themselves have definitely facilitated more productive engagements. Reading a book does not make you an expert, but it does allow for more constructive discussions and a smoother delivery of a dashboard. While I can appreciate Stephen Few’s passion for calling out vendors for product gaps, I do not think that marketing materials intended to illustrate technology capabilities should be placed into the critique bin. With that said, vendors need to put their best foot forward to prove that their technology can deliver adequate dashboards execution as well as marketing sizzle.

Hopefully this sparks interesting conversation, but more importantly I hope it will lead you to:

• Submit enhancement requests to BOBJ and push them to continue improving and evolving the technology to support good design.
• Practice design principles and guidelines set by the experts including Stephen Few.
• Educate your customers or stakeholders who do not understand best practices and guidelines for good design.

Ryan Goodman is the Founder of Centigon Solutions, an SAP® software solution partner that is strategically focused on developing add-on products for use with Xcelsius®. To learn more about him, please visit our new Gurus page.

Related Posts

• May 4, 2009 — Top 10 Xcelsius 2008 SDK FAQ’s (3)

Mike Alexander is the author of several books on advanced business analysis, including Crystal Xcelsius For Dummies. You can find Mike at www.datapigtechnologies.com, where he serves as principle contributor and shares free video tutorials with the Microsoft Office and Xcelsius communities.

Related Posts

• May 19, 2009 — Video: Charting Best Practice for Easy Chart Switching (2)
• May 5, 2009 — Video: Conditionally Formatting Y-Axis Labels (4)